A Monstrous Gift
by Sargent Snarky
Summary: Hojo has a gift for Lucrecia. A shocking gift. A monstrous gift.


**A Monstrous Gift**

_Disclaimer_: If I owned Final Fantasy 7, Sephiroth would have worn his hair in a braid or something – at least when he was still in SOLDIER. I mean, surely such long hair would have gotten in the way…? Call me silly, but I should think at least a ribbon or something to hold it out of the way would be practical.

_Summary_: Hojo has a gift for Lucrecia. A shocking gift. A monstrous gift.

_Rating_: T because it's a bit gruesome and disturbing.

_A/N_: This is a pretty strange fic. I warn you of that in advance. However, it is strange in an interesting way, or so I'd like to think. Hojo is quite… insane in this fic, but it's different from the normal Hojo insane. You'll see what I mean when you read it… and you will read it, won't you:)

I admit, it's AU in regards to Dirge of Cerberus, but… I don't think it necessarily counts as AU for the original game. But that's me…

I would appreciate any comments or criticism you could offer. Thank you!

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Story

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In horrified awe, she stares at the naked body, lying limp and lifeless on the operating table. It was once a man's body, a fighter's body: a lithe and limber thing of muscles and tendons and very little surplus fat. It was once designed with grace in mind, a fluid movement and steady hand that made the body ideal for a gunman. And such the body had once been – but that was months ago, before he had died, his abdomen and several arteries ruined by a red-hot bullet that tore painfully through unprotected flesh.

Now, the body yet retains its slim, toned build, but it has become twisted. Bones, ligaments, vessels, nerves – so much has been rearranged, cut apart and stitched back together with exacting care. Neat rows of stitches trace an almost symmetrical pattern across the body's torso, arms and legs. The catgut is tied in precise and almost microscopic knots, and the forest of sutures is thickest on the chest and back. However, on the abdomen, a little off-center, the pattern is disturbed where a hole has been patched up. The play at balance is further distorted by the left arm, which from just above the elbow downward is encased in a metal sheathe, ending in a claw.

She realizes, staring at this contraption, that it does not cover the body's arm so much as it has become the body's arm. Grafted on with wires and chords, staples and thick stitching, the artificial limb is one with the flesh; so well it has been attached, it cannot be removed – at least not without damaging what remained, breaking the bone and sundering arteries, nerves and tendons.

Fascinated and revolted, she cannot help but stare, eyes raking over the body several times before fixating on the face, perhaps the only place left untouched, though even it retains marks; at the temples, a few tiny incision marks remain, and a word has been carved into the skin stretched across the forehead – written in the strange marks of the Ancients' writing, 'monster.'

But it is not this marking that makes her stare so. No, it is because she knows the face, for it has not been changed, and to see it relaxed and cool, peaceful with death, though its body has been mutilated so… it wrenches at her heart, fills her with guilt and sorrow and pain. She knows these emotions well, has grown to know these emotions almost too well over the past months, as the treatments progress, and she feels the life growing within her. She knows that her son – she is certain that her unborn child is a boy – will be born, soon, but not yet… it is too soon, though she aches to be rid of the burden and longs for the end, as much because she wants to rest as anything else. The Project isn't so important, now, as she grows frail and anxious.

Seeing him, no, his body, seeing it sprawled there is almost too much for her, but she cannot look away. Even as her throat constricts, and her eyes blur with tears, she cannot even take a step backwards.

"I made it for you," speaks a voice in her ears, a soft, soothing voice that she both hates and loves all in the same moment; two long-fingered, pale hands rest upon her shoulders gently. "You have always liked monsters; you've devoted your life to studying them," the voice goes on, tone laced with almost childish delight; if she ignored the sight before her eyes, it is almost as though the voice is that of an eager youth, pleased to show off his prized work of art, shyly smiling as he holds it out for her to admire. "So, I made one for you. It's not finished, yet. It's not alive, yet. It's not… complete."

The voice now sounds faintly disappointed, saddened because the child's gift is not perfect. As if the final word had broken a spell, she lurches backward, recoiling from the body and spinning around as swiftly as her awkward, lumpy body with its full, round belly will allow. Because her husband is there, she clings to him, fingers gripping his lab coat so tightly her knuckles turn white, and she nearly breaks his neck with the pulling. Sobs wrack her form as she leans against him, and he wraps his long arms around her, rubbing her back, stroking her disheveled hair; he says nothing, but simply holds her.

Then, amid her weeping, she begs to know, "Why…?"

Misunderstanding – whether willfully or not is never clear – he answers, despondently, "With Mako and Jenova, I've kept it from completely dying; I've kept its soul there, in its body, albeit in stasis of a sort, but I can't… I cannot awaken it, and even if I could, the soul that is there, it isn't… it wouldn't make a monster. It wouldn't be the monster you're looking for. It wouldn't be Chaos… not unless… unless Chaos' soul was put within. That might bring him round." Now, he is thoughtful. "Perhaps the Mako from the fountain…"

"No, no, _no_!" She shakes her head against his chest. "That's not what I mean… why… why did you do this to him? Killing him was bad enough, but why… why did you… you…" She cannot finish, and she buries her face against him anew.

"For you," he answers, looking down at her as if stunned that she would ask such a thing. "All for you…"

She looks up at him, disbelieving and yet… seeing his smile, hearing the wry laughter, she knows this to be true, and she pulls away from him, shaking her head. She opens her mouth to rebuke him, to shout at him for desecrating a corpse so, but she stops, unable to formulate any words at all. However, he reads her expression, and the light in his eyes dies, his smile faltering and fading into a puzzled frown. She shakes her head, again, and her hands are balled into fists.

"Lu…?" He seems very perplexed; he had been so sure that she would be pleased. "I thought you… wanted…"

"You! You're the monster!" she cries, her tongue at last loosening. "How? How could you?! _How could you_!"

"But…" He stops mid protest and scowls, eyes glinting angrily behind his glasses. "You're so ungrateful! I did this for _you_! The child that grows in your womb grows for _you_! The Treatments I give to you and to it are not for _my_ benefit – _they are for you_."

She shakes her head, backing a step away from him and then another. "No!" Again, she shakes her head, bringing one hand up to it, fingers twisting into her hair. Her skull feels thick and heavy; it feels as though another dream is coming on, a hazy vision of tragedy and horror. "They are not," she gasps, vision swimming before her. She takes another step backwards, barely noticing that she is within reaching distance of the body on the table. "They've never been… I don't… I don't want them! Please make them stop… no… noooo…"

The last trails off into a groan as she falls back against the operating table, one arm flailing wildly to attempt to keep herself from falling; her hand comes to rest briefly upon the limp, chill hand, and as her mind fades to blackness, she feels it twitch, the fingers moving ever so slightly. But, it could always be her imagination, and she barely registers it before she has fallen to the tile floor, curling up as best she can with a swollen belly, shuddering and moaning, mind lost to the dreams of the future, her son's future.

Her husband stands above her, gazing down at her twitching form with distaste and disappointment and sadness and frustration. Rejection stings, and he doesn't like it. His eyes shift from her to the body on the table, and he sighs an angry, tired sigh. Why had she expressed such desire to see Chaos, if she didn't truly want it?

He turns to go about his business elsewhere in the lab, but a brief flare of… something – he doesn't readily know what – pulls him back, and he looks down at her, again. Sighing once more, he bends down and carefully moves her, repositioning her to a more comfortable position. At this stage in her pregnancy, she is too awkward for him to lift, so he leaves her there, pulling off his lab coat and rolling it up to make a pillow for her.

Once she is situated, he stands up and looks at the body, again, a sneer of contempt twisting his face. His greatest piece of art scorned! Rolling his eyes and muttering something about a lack of gratitude and appreciation, he turns and stalks off farther into the lab. Briefly, he pauses beside an immersion tube, full of liquid and nothing else, then looks back to the body, pondering.

When she awakens from her delirious nightmares, her husband is nowhere to be found, at least not upon a cursory glance around the room. With a grunt or two of effort, she heaves herself to her feet, and it is only when her eyes stray to the empty surface of the operating table that her rapid breathing catches, again, and she feels the pressure in her sinuses and the tears welling up in her eyes.

Biting hard upon her lip, she looks up, over to the immersion tanks. The body is within one, floating, simply floating, bathed in a faint green glow from the lights and the Mako-laced wash it soaks in. Her thoughts are confused and scattered, and she is still dazed from the trance. She does not quite remember why, but she suddenly desires that the body no longer be a corpse but alive. Then she knows it already is alive, but lifeless all the same, and she has an urge to save the spark that was left and bring it back to life, as if that could undo the horrors of what has been done to the body. Slowly, dream-like, she steps towards the tank, then past it to its controls, prepared to return it – no, _him_ – back to life.

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End

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A/N: Please leave a review to let me know what you thought of this!

For clarification purposes: Lucrecia was the 'she', Vincent was the body, and Hojo was, of course, her husband. Aaaand… FF7 fanfic brings out the just plain weird in me.. Hehe.

- Snarky


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